Girl Behind the Scandalous Reputation (9 page)

This situation was seriously driving him crazy.
She
was seriously driving him crazy. And, worse, the memory of the day his mother had walked out on them wouldn’t leave him alone.

Tristan had overheard his parents arguing. Overheard his mother telling his father that he had nothing she wanted. That her son, Tristan, had nothing she wanted either. And that had bitten deep, because every time she had spiralled downwards Tristan had always been there to try and help her. Tried to be there for her. So to have her only want Jordana…

The memory still chilled his blood. It had taken him a long time to realise that no one was good enough for her and that all those years of trying to win her love and approval had been for nothing.

He scrubbed his hand over his face and shut the mixer off. He pulled on silk boxer shorts and walked up the outdoor circular staircase to his rooftop balcony.

The night was cool, and he enjoyed the sting of air on his skin as he leaned on the wrought-iron railing and looked out over the dark mass that was the Heath and the twinkling coloured lights of London beyond. The cumulus clouds that hung over the city had a faint pinkish tinge due to the light pollution, but he barely noticed. His mind was focused on replaying the day’s events in his head.

Which wasn’t a good thing—because his head was full of more questions than answers.

He didn’t know whether to believe Lily about her not having a current lover, but he was beginning to suspect that she was telling the truth about not knowing she’d had drugs in her bag. That was disconcerting, because it meant he’d been wrong about her. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been wrong about a person. Hated to think that he was now. Because if he was he owed her an apology.

Could she really be as genuine, as
untouched
, as she appeared? Or was he just a fool, being taken in by a beautiful and duplicitous woman? One whose job it was to pretend to be someone she wasn’t.

Whatever she was, he desired her more than he’d desired any woman before—and that wasn’t good.

He gripped the balustrade so tightly his palms hurt. He needed an outlet for all the pent-up energy whizzing through his blood, and the only thing he could think of to assuage his physical ache was totally off-limits.

Straightening, he clasped his hands behind his neck, twisting his body from side to side to ease the kinks in his back. A run usually helped clear the cobwebs away. And if he didn’t have a suspect movie star sleeping next door he’d put on his joggers and do exactly that. But then, if he
didn’t
have a suspect movie star sleeping next door he probably wouldn’t need to go for a run at—he glanced at his watch—one in the morning.

Grimacing, he strode inside and flopped face down on his bed.

Given that he couldn’t get rid of her in the short term, the only way he could think of to deal with this situation was with the detached professionalism he would offer any client and ignore the attraction between them.

He’d told her more than once today that he was in charge, and damn it if he wasn’t going to start behaving as if he was tomorrow.

‘A
MOVIE
premiere? Is this your idea of a joke?’

Tristan’s PA flinched as she stood on the other side of his desk, and he realised he’d said almost those exact words to his sister at almost this exact time yesterday.

Again he’d been having a great morning, and again it was shot to—

Okay, so it hadn’t been
that
great a morning, what with Lily waking up late and a police detective waiting around in his home until she did so, but it was definitely ruined now. He cut a hard look to Lily, who stared back impassively at him from the white sofa.

‘Uh, n-no,’ Kate stuttered.

He glanced back at his computer screen, at the images Kate had brought up of the legions of fans who had camped out overnight in Leicester Square to get a glimpse of Lily Wild at some premiere to be held that evening.

‘Lily, tell me this is a joke.’

He watched Lily’s throat work as she swallowed, and then he returned his eyes to his surprised PA, who didn’t seem to know what to do with her hands. She’d never seen him on the verge of losing his temper before and she was clearly daunted.

‘I wasn’t going to say anything,’ Lily informed him coolly, standing to walk over to his desk.

Only she wasn’t so cool deep down, because she didn’t seem to know what to do with her hands either, and nervously pleated the loose folds of her peasant skirt.

His eyes swept upwards over her clinging purple shirt and then into eyes almost the same shade. ‘I’m sure you weren’t,’ he mocked.

‘Only because I was going to cancel my attendance—not because I didn’t want you to know about it.’

Cancel it? He doubted that very much. She’d set up her attendance long before now, and while she might be feeling apprehensive about her drug bust he doubted she seriously wanted to miss an opportunity in the limelight. She’d chosen that life, after all.

‘Oh, you can’t cancel!’ Kate cried, trying very hard not to appear starstruck. ‘The premiere was delayed until today so you could make it, and there are people who have camped out in the cold night to see you. They’ll be so disappointed. Look.’

She pointed to the computer screen, but Tristan’s eyes stayed locked on Lily’s face.

Just as they did later that night, when he found himself in the back of his limousine being whisked through central London on his way to Leicester Square.

It wasn’t quite sunset, but the sky was filled with leaden clouds that blocked the setting sun from view and made it darker than it otherwise would be. Light rain splattered the windows, and Tristan wondered if Lily looked so nervous because she was worried that the rain would ruin the look she and Jordana had come up with in his bathroom or something else.

Because she certainly looked nervous.

Her chest was rising and falling with each deep, almost meditative breath she took. Her hands were locked together in her lap, and with her eyes closed she looked like Marie Antoinette must have before being dragged to the guillotine. But he didn’t think Marie Antoinette could have looked anywhere near as beautiful as Lily Wild did at this minute. As she did every damned minute.

Then the car rounded the final bend and he suspected he knew why she might be nervous.

The car pulled up kerbside, and the door was immediately opened by a burly security guard wearing a glow-in-the-dark red-and-yellow bomber jacket. A wide red carpet extended in front of them for miles, dividing the screaming mass of fans barely constrained behind waist-high barricades.

Men and women in suits trawled the carpet, and the fans went from wild to berserk, waving books and posters around like flags, as Lily alighted from the car into a pool of spotlights.

The stage lighting on nearby buildings and trees was no match for the sea of camera flashes that blinded Lily, and then himself, on both sides as Tristan followed Lily out of the car.

An official photographer rushed up and started snapping Lily from every angle, while a woman in a dark suit and clipboard motioned her along the carpet to sign autographs for the waiting fans.

Tristan felt as if he’d stepped into an alternative universe, and wasn’t wholly comfortable when Lily approached one of the barricades and the fans surged forward as one, making the beefy security guards who could have moonlighted as linebackers for the New Zealand All Blacks square off menacingly.

Tristan felt sure the fans were about to break through the barricades, and his own muscles bunched in readiness to grab Lily and haul her behind him if that should happen.

In the surrounding sea of multiple colours and broad black umbrellas held aloft to ward off the fine rain falling from the sky Lily stood out with her cream-coloured dress, lightly golden skin and upswept silvery-blond hair.

When he had first seen her in the dress Jordana had produced earlier—a knee-length clinging sheath with a high neck—he’d known he was in trouble. Then she had turned to reveal that it had no back, and he’d nearly told her to go back and put on her blouse and peasant skirt. But then he’d have had to explain why, and he didn’t like admitting why to himself let alone anyone else.

Now he could appreciate that Jordana had wrought a small miracle, and had made Lily look like a golden angel amid a sea of darkness.

Which, aesthetically, was wonderful, but was not so great for his personal comfort level—nor, he could safely say, that of any other man who happened to look upon her that night!

He watched her now, doing her thing with the fans, and thought back over the interminable day.

All day she had been a paragon of virtue. She’d done exactly as he wanted—sat on the white sofa in his office and acted as if she wasn’t there. Which should have made it easier to ignore her but hadn’t. Because while she had immersed herself in a script with all the verve of someone preparing to sit a final exam he had struggled to find one case that held his attention long enough for him to forget she was in the room.

When he’d tried to engage her in a conversation about what had happened the night of Jo’s eighteenth birthday party she had clammed up, and he had to wonder why. Jordana had implied that he’d been wrong about Lily’s involvement, but if so why would Lily remain tight-lipped and only throw him that phony smile of hers when he broached the topic?

A roar from the crowd snapped his head around as a tall, buff Latino heart-throb dressed in torn jeans and a crumpled shirt swaggered towards Lily, raising both hands to wave at the near-hysterical crowd as he went. Lily turned and swatted the man with her million-dollar smile and Tristan felt his insides clench. That smile was like the midday sun coming out from behind heavy clouds—bright and instantly warming. Seductive and impossible to ignore. And so genuine it made his jaw harden. She had yet to turn it his way again, and he realised that he wanted her to. Badly.

The heart-throb draped his arm around Lily’s waist and leaned in to kiss her, smiling at her like some long-lost lover.

They looked good together, his dark hair a perfect foil for her blondeness, and Tristan’s eyes narrowed as he watched them work the crowd. His initial instinct to leap forward and
rip the actor’s arm from its socket slowly abated as he calmed his senses and realised that the actor’s light touches here and there were too tentative to be that of a lover.

If the guy had known her intimately he wouldn’t be just placing his hand on her hip now and then for a photo. He’d be subtly spreading his fingers wide over the small of her back, which Tristan already knew was sensitive to a man’s touch. He’d let his fingers trail the naked baby-soft skin there and smile into her eyes when she delicately shuddered in response. Maybe he’d even press lightly on her flesh to have her arch ever so slightly towards him. Maybe exert just enough pressure so that he could hear that soft hitch in her breath as her mouth parted—

Hell
.

Tristan pulled his thoughts back from the brink and dug his hands into his pockets, calling himself an idiot and wondering how long he could continue like this.

The crowd gave a howl of complaint as Lily and the heart-throb walked back towards the red carpet. The actor’s hand hovered behind her protectively, and even though Tristan knew they weren’t lovers he could tell by the expression on the Latino’s face that he’d probably give up that arm to become so.

He was immensely irritated by the man’s proprietorial air—and by his own desire to possess her. Especially when she had done little to incite his attention. And why hadn’t she?

Lily Wild was turning out to be an enigma, and he was not at all happy to find that he might have been guilty of stereotyping her just as much as the next person.

‘I have to do the red carpet thing and answer a few questions from the press and then we can go in,’ she murmured over the noise of the crowd.

He nodded, but his eyes were on the actor, and Tristan found himself deliberately stepping into Lily’s personal space to let the heart-throb know she was off-limits.

Lily’s eyes widened quizzically, but the actor got the message, throwing his chest forward in a display of machismo.

They took each other’s measure for a beat, and then the actor gave a typically Mediterranean shrug.

‘Hey, man, don’t sweat it.’ He laughed, backing down when it became obvious that Tristan wouldn’t. ‘I was just helping Angel, here. You know how she gets in crowds.’

Tristan didn’t, but he nodded anyway and watched the heart-throb amble further along the line.

He put his hand on Lily’s arm to stop her following. ‘What was he talking about?’

Lily sniffed, and raised a hand to wave at her fans. ‘Nothing.’

He tightened his grip as she made to shrug him off. ‘How was he helping you?’

‘Not by feeding me drugs, if that’s what you’re thinking.’

He hadn’t been thinking that, and her comment ticked him off. ‘Then tell me what he was talking about.’

‘I can’t explain here.’ She nodded to a fellow actor who blew a hello kiss. ‘I don’t have time.’

‘Make time.’

‘Oh!’ She huffed, and then leaned closer to him, her delicate perfume wafting into his sinuses. ‘I used to have agoraphobia. Now can we go?’

Tristan frowned. ‘Fear of open spaces?’

‘Do you even know
how
to whisper?’ she complained, clearly uncomfortable with the subject matter. ‘Most people think of it as that, but in my case it’s a fear of crowds and being trapped in a situation I can’t control.’

‘That’s what the therapy was about?’ he said.

She glanced at him sharply. ‘How do you know…? Oh, your special investigator’s report. Well, it’s nice to know he got some things right.’

‘How do you know it was a he?’

‘Because from the little I know of what’s in it he’s made snap judgements on very little evidence at all—just like a man.’

Tristan bit back a response and refocused. ‘How bad is your phobia?’

Lily sighed. ‘It’s not bad at all. Jordi Mantuso and I swapped stories on set and he was just being kind.’

Tristan was shocked by her revelation. ‘And are you okay? Right now?’

She looked taken aback by the question and he gritted his teeth, realising that his behaviour towards her had given her a very negative impression of who he was.

‘Y-yes. I’m okay. It’s not like I can’t go out in a crowd—it’s more a fear of being trapped by them.’

‘Like when you were a child and surrounded with your parents’ crowds of fans?’

The softness that had come over her face at his concern disappeared, and she looked away before glancing back. ‘Yes. They think that’s where it started. But I haven’t had an attack in years.’

One of the female minders approached, to find out what was delaying them, and Tristan watched Lily paste on a smile that didn’t reach her eyes as she walked towards the rows of paparazzi.

She answered questions and posed for photographs like the professional she was, and he couldn’t help respecting the adversity she had learned to overcome in order to work in her chosen profession.

He could see her making moves to finish up, and then her body stiffened. Something was wrong. Was she having a panic attack?

‘I don’t do theatre,’ she was saying firmly.

‘But why not, Lily? You’ve been offered the role of a lifetime, playing your mum. Are you not even considering it?’

‘No.’ Polite, but definite.

‘What’s wrong with the U.K., Lily? Don’t you like us?’

‘Of course.’ Another pretty smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. ‘My schedule hasn’t allowed me to return to England before now.’

‘The roles you choose…’ an oily voice spoke up from the rear and paused for effect ‘…they’re very different women from
your mother. Is that a deliberate decision on your part? Is that why you won’t take the West End gig?’

Lily felt Tristan step closer, and the warmth from his body momentarily distracted her from the reporter’s question. She hated this part of the proceedings. And she wouldn’t take the part playing her mother if it was the last known acting role on the planet.

‘I choose my roles according to what interests me. My current film,
Carried Away
, is a romantic comedy, and…I like happy endings…what else can I say?’ Lily smiled and turned to answer another question about location, before the same reporter who had been taking potshots at her from the get-go piped up again.

‘Do you ever worry about being thought of as like your mother?’

‘No.’ Lily’s smile felt as if it was made of cardboard and she thought about making an exit.

‘What’s it like kissing Jordi Mantuso?’

‘Divine.’ Lily’s smile was genuine, and the fans who had caught her words whooped.

But the oily guy was back. ‘Miss Wild, I’m still not clear about the West End gig. We’ve heard the director is holding off signing another female lead, so is the reason you won’t do it because you’re worried about the theatre aspect or…something else?’

Oh, this guy was good. He was a top-of-the-line paparazzo with a nose for a juicy story, and Lily could feel some of that old panic from years ago—the panic she had just told Tristan was firmly under control—well up inside her.

It was being back in London that was doing it. The whole stigma of who her parents had been. And the paps here were relentless. She rarely had to face such insolence in other parts of the world.